Episode 1

Erica woke up from her nap stowed away in a crash couch. Her body ached from the odd, contorted position in which she had fallen asleep. She let out a long yawn and inspected the cabin around her. Her cabin. The ever present hum of the air recycler was a calming sound at this point in her journey. She felt a strange flutter in her stomach when she thought about the journey she and the rest of the ship’s inhabitants were on.

She swung her legs and let her feet touch the metallic floor. The coolness on her bare feet gave her system a bit of a shock and she almost recoiled back into the couch. Almost, but didn’t. She got up, she had to, she’d taken a nap because for the past few rotations she had been living off of bad caffeine, gruelling mundane office work and little to no sleep. That’s what you get for being a relatively lowly security officer on this ship. She’d been dealing with a spate of robberies - minor things: some machine parts here and there, nothing mission critical. Nothing worth the time of the actual detectives aboard. 

Truth be told, she didn’t mind at all, really. She was content being the one to take orders as opposed to the one making them. Would she sometimes voice a differing opinion only to be ignored? Sure. Would she sometimes wish that the higher-ups did what she suggested? Sure. Did she let it consume her and make her bitter? Nope. She knew her place and while she sometimes got things right with her thoughts on situations (when looking in hindsight) she was also very happy with not being the one to answer for things when they went sour. She’d had that job before; she didn’t want it again.

She strode over to her little cabin’s wash area and sprayed some recently recycled water on her face. The fact it used to be… other forms of water… did not bother her in the slightest, having grown up on an outpost on Ganymede. There the water was either recycled or purified - depending on the social strata you were lucky enough to live in. She rubbed her oily skin as clean as she could and then dried herself with a cloth. She did not need to shower, nor was it her allocated shower slot so she simply adjusted her pale blue jumpsuit and equipped her service issue utility belt, making sure to check the charge on her stun baton. In the two waking years aboard, she’d not needed to use it, but she liked to be sure just the same. Full charge, that was good. She slipped on her boots and was ready.

Erica flashed a brief “go get ‘em” smile to herself in the mirror and then swiped her hand to open her quarter’s hatch. The sound of bustling life erupted into the (until recently) soundproofed cabin. It was a pleasant soundscape; it meant life was going on as per normal. Or at least as normal as it could. She exited left and went on her way, her magnetic boots clanking on the grating that made up the floor of the hallway. The mags weren’t activated as there was no need but the clanking remained all the same. It did not bother most of the inhabitants anymore, they’d grown accustomed to the sound by then. Not to mention there was a large contingency of the population who grew up in low-g environments; magnetic boots were for them a staple.

Erica passed some of her neighbours and gave them a nod of acknowledgement or even a friendly wave to those she considered just more than acquaintances. There were some, but not a whole lot who fell into that category. Being a security officer on a long haul ark mission was not exactly a job that got you automatic friends. Erica understood this and begrudged no one for being a little weary of her and her fellow officers; in reality, no one had any hostility towards the Horizon-Sec officers. No one she knew anyway - and she’d met almost all the inhabitants.

Louis saw her as she entered the sector 4 mess hall. His face lit up and he gestured for her to come and sit with him. He was a tall man with a gaunt face but kind eyes. Erica counted him as one of two actual friends on this ship: him and Danis, an engineer in sector 1 who had the best bar stories she’d ever heard. Erica sidled up to Louis, she was not particularly hungry so she just sat there with him.

“Did you get some sleep at least?” Louis asked. He was concerned. Of course he was. Nurses were like that.

“Enough.”

“Good,” he said, then took a bite of his loaf.

“I’ve got an interview in a few minutes so I can’t stay,” said Erica, stealing a pea-like object from his plate. It was really just a protein ball of sorts. Tasted… okay. “But see you in sector 2 tonight? Tell Danis, will you?”

“Going to bust some moves this time?”

“Certainly going to watch you bust some moves, yeah,” Erica quipped back and hopped up again. She did not wait for his reply and headed on out the hall. She had to catch a transport tram to get her to the Horizon-Sec Command Centre in time for her interview. She was fit, but not fit enough to jog all the way to Sector 7 in the time she had. She hailed a tram (really a fancy little caged cart on tracks) and slipped in, buckling herself up so that the thick straps made an ‘x’ across her chest. Just as she was about to punch her destination in, Louis came hurrying out the mess hall down the way, he scanned for and then waved at Erica.

“I forgot I have a patient to check up on in Sector 6!” he shouted. “Wait up!”

Erica gave him a faux-evil grin and punched her tram to go. Louis’s face contorted into clear frustration as he saw her starting to leave without him.

“I’ll get you for this!” he shouted after her, mostly joking.

“Sure!” Erica shifted to face forward, grabbing hold of the bar of the buggy’s roll cage. She took a few moments to clear her head. She still had two interviews to do, this one coming up would help her isolate a more workable time frame, so she hoped - 

A loud groan blasted from everywhere and all at once the screams of thousands of people filled her ears as in an instant the world of the Horizon flew past her. The sudden g-force struck her body like nothing she’d ever experienced in her life and before she could grasp what was happening, she blacked out.

Episode 2

"We are now in orbit around your new home, travelers." A humanoid yet robotic feminine voice sounded throughout the Horizon. "Welcome to Eden, previously classified Waylan 135b of the Waylan System. Congratulations, your years-long journey among the stars has ended."

Klaxons were wailing and so were a myriad of indiscernible voices all around her. Erica felt a pinch on her wrist where her wristband was. It woke her up. Her back and right arm felt numb and overall she felt as though she had just been smashed against a wall. She groaned and tried to shift in her seat, she was hanging sideways in the buggy's roll cage, her seat-belt had caught her from falling through the opening of the buggy on the opposite side to the one she entered. Her head was pounding and she tasted blood.

"We- we- we are n-n-now in orbit arrrrround your n-n-new home, travelelelers-" the ship's AI continued her prerecorded speech, growing more and more stunted in her delivery as the catastrophic damage of whatever just happened to the Horizon was filtering through circuits and affecting the AI's mainframe.

Erica grunted and hauled her working arm around her body to detach herself from the seat. She did so and felt her body drop and slam against the floor of Sector 4. Once again the sudden pain was immense and she felt a pool of some cool liquid against her arm and head. When she eventually managed to lift herself to a somewhat upright position did she see the pool of blood. Her head pounded and she reached up instinctively and found a large cut along her scalp. At least she knew where the blood had come from. Her mind went into survival mode. She was bleeding, but conscious and alive. This much she knew. What she had to do was survey the area and find out what had happened. 

Her years of training reminded her that while she was just a lowly security officer, a drastic event - as was what seemed to be the case now - was literally her job to deal with. This mental reorientation of purpose brought back into earshot the sounds of the Horizon around her. People were shouting for help, people were crying. She could hear only a few footsteps echoing in the distance. Most people were clearly injured, and unable to move a lot. This was something big. She forced herself to manoeuvre up and slowly out of the now wrecked buggy. She pulled herself into a semi standing position, using the buggy's one wheel as a stabiliser and looked up.

Immediately she wanted to look down again, not only because of the dizziness, but also because of the sight that was now her reality. Chaos was not a word she would use to describe what lay before her as it was much too tame a word. Buggies were everywhere, various crates and bottles and cups - really anything - lay strewn across the floor as far as Erica could see. The usual day lights had been replaced with flashing emergency red lights and all around her were the mangled bodies of most of Sector 4. Dead.

She kept her gaze away out of respect but the images remained scoured into her mind. Images of limbs bent in ways that shouldn't be and bodies squashed as if they'd jumped from a skyscraper. Without warning, some tears began to well in the corners of her eyes. Erica sniffled and snapped her head up.

"No, no, no," she fought with reason and began to limp as fast as she could back the way she had come on the buggy. The numbness in her side was subsiding, turning into something more like a dull ache. She didn't have to go very far, whatever had happened had happened very soon after she’d left. She reached the transit station and hurriedly looked around. She looked around desperately for something she hoped she wouldn't find. But she found it. Found him. There, on the far wall of some building, a mech shop or similar - like she cared what building it was right then - was Louis. Erica did not go closer, she knew he was gone. She'd known it before she'd set off on her limp-run. She had been spared because she had been in a roll cage. Most everyone else it seemed had not been so lucky. 

She did not approach Louis' body. It would not be dignified, and she couldn't bear it.

It was then she felt it, or more precisely, didn't feel it. The ship's thrusters, the ones that make a constant vibration (minimal as it was usually) were definitely not active. The realisation came to her like a crashing wave: the Horizon had stopped. A full stop.

She forced her gaze away from her dead friend and wiped her eyes. This was serious and there would be time to mourn later. Right then, she had to do something to help. She scanned the sector around her and in the distance she saw a few survivors. They were waddling about aimlessly, some dazed, others lost - both in words and thought.

Erica made herself walk with as little a limp as she could. The civilians needed a show of strength from the security team and until she found who was left of her team, she was determined to be that strength. Her eyes caught one of the survivors and Erica forced a meager, well mannered smile of reassurance to spread across her face. The survivor, a woman who seemed to be in her early twenties, reflected the smile back as best she could and began to waddle towards her.

"Your, your uniform," she began as she made her way to Erica. Her voice was small, like a child. "What's happened? What do we do?" She paused and her eyes glazed over slightly, "Daniel went to get us a snack..."

"I'm Erica, what's your name?" Erica knew she had to keep this woman's mind from wandering.

"Cally," said Cally, "Are you with security? What happened?"

"I am, yes," Erica started, "And I don't know exactly, just take it easy. If I had to guess, I think the ship just did a full stop."

"A full stop?" Cally's voice became more shrill. "A ship doesn't just do a full stop! Why-"

"I don't know, but the sec team will find out. Right now we need to get the survivors together and find out from the Horizon Commander what our next steps are."

"Full stop?" Cally blinked, her feet dragging. "No. No, the schedule says three months. We can't stop." Erica guided her toward the other wanderers, but Cally dug her heels in. She looked at Erica, her pupils dilated and uneven.

"The Commander," Cally said, the words tumbling out. "He knows. I saw him. Last night? Was it last night?" She grabbed Erica’s arm, her grip weak. "Daniel isn't back. He went for a snack. He's just getting a snack. Why isn't he back?"

Erica remained silent as they moved slowly up the walkway. Cally was clearly suffering some sort of concussion, but Erica was no doctor. Louis would know what to do. She felt her emotions well up again, but pushed them down. It was not the time.

"Do you know where the Commander would be? Isn't his cabin in Sector 2? Maybe we should head there?" Cally said with her renewed vigour.

There were a few simultaneous beeps from Erica's and every other functioning wrist band display. They were all receiving a message. Erica paused and lifted her arm to view the message. It flickered open upon facial recognition. The messages appeared in rapid succession, each one simple and clear:

<EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.> 

<CHAIN OF COMMAND ASSESSMENT COMPLETE.>

  <ERICA HAUSEN TO TAKE COMMAND OF THE HORIZON.>